Gabriel Ojeda Leads the (Fritz) Pak

For Gabriel Ojeda, owner of Fritz-Pak Concrete Admixtures, innovation is a direct result of his customers. One of his ideas -- the Rescue Pak (more about that later) -- even earned 2003's Most Innovative Ready Mix Product Award at the World of Concrete.

"Our strength/specialty is knowing concrete and cement chemistry. There's no school to learn to make concrete admixtures," explains Ojeda. "We introduced (our product) line in the late 80s, and people would call and ask if they could use it for X. Those questions prompted new products for the line."

Product like additives for ready mix producers, pool contractors, concrete precasters and concrete pumpers. "These new applications are all direct responses to consumers' needs," says Ojeda. "About 20 percent of our business is dealing with materials that are not in our product lines. We make custom admixtures based on clients' needs."

It's that type of thinking that's earned Fritz-Pak the reputation it now has -- one of innovation and industry expertise. "A great benefit of all the products is that they are compatible," says The Stamp Store's Doug Bannister. "We have used the NCA, SP-5, MD and Control Finish on the same pour...all of this means that the contractor has greater control over his medium. The ability to site dose ready mix concrete allows the decorative contractor to deliver a product that is more durable, stronger and more consistent than is possible with plant batch admixtures alone."

Bannister adds that when he does demonstrations, he always has a Rescue-Pak on hand to adjust the slump and set time. "There has not been an instance (knock on wood) that I have not been able to conduct a decorative demonstration in the allotted time frame regardless of slump and temperature. The only way to do this is to have the ability to site dose with the Fritz-Pak products," he says.

The company started out as Fritz Industries, and it primarily specialized in selling additives for oil wells. When the company was affected by the drop in oil prices in the 80s, the original owners decided to diversify, selling admixtures to the construction business.

Since their additives were in powder form, they could able to be shipped to remote locations, which made them unique. But Fritz took it a step further. In order to compete in the well-established big-budget admixture market, Fritz designed water-soluble bags with pre-measured doses of admixture in them. They applied for a patent in the late 80s, and retarders were packaged first. The product line evolved from there.

In 1996-97, there was another significant decrease in oil prices, and the owners of Fritz Industries decided to sell the admixture division of the company. Ojeda, then employed as manager of that division, made an offer and bought the admixture division in 1998. Since the name was already branded in the industry and people recognized it, he kept the Fritz and added Pak.

"We started selling the materials to ready mix producers, but then we began to penetrate the concrete contractor side, because they need concrete to be more fluid or required a faster or extended set time," he explains. "As the decorative concrete sector started to grow, our products started having more uses." The top five selling products groups are the retarders, accelerators, concrete pump aids/primers, air entraining agents and superplasticizers.

One of Ojeda's goals is to make things as easy as possible for the workers in concrete construction -- and to that end, a water-soluble pre-measured admixture does just that. They also make a retarder called the Three Ones, which stands for one bag of retarder, retards one yard of concrete, for one hour.

When Ojeda noticed that the same types of problems always tended to come up at jobsites, he created the Rescue-Pak to help in jobsite issues. It's a toolbox with six different materials and a color chart, so the contractor only needs to look up the problem he's having -- such as he needs to increase the pumpability of his mixture -- and the chart will tell him which additives to use.

"We're always looking for ways to simplify things for our end-user," explains Ojeda. "We look for where we can save steps and eliminate water due to transportation issues surrounding shipping and storage."

For example, Fritz-Pak helped with the building of a water station at the North Pole. The admixture materials were shipped there one summer and the construction didn't start for another year. Yet, the dry mixtures survived the harsh winter without being affected, and they didn't require heated warehouses because they were not in liquid form.

Next on Ojeda's plate are more admixtures for concrete contractors. "We always strive to stay close to the people doing those applications and develop products for them," he says. "This changes the size of our product, because typically concrete contractors work on a smaller volume. We've just added a new product, a very small 5-ounce bag of accelerator for small contractor jobs. Next year we'll introduce a retarder in the same small 5-ounce size for contractors."

There seems to be no limit to Ojeda's imagination right now, and the future looks extremely bright. "People want concrete in different colors and want to work it into non-conventional applications, and each requires modification in the concrete in order for it to work correctly," says Ojeda. If it sounds like job security, it is.

"It's durable, economical and can be used for many applications," Ojeda says.

"Cement is the cheapest glue available, and that will continue without being affected over time."

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